Pegg On His 'Star Trek' Experience

As reported by TrekMovie.com, from a podcast taken from a Kevin and Bean podcast, Pegg's Star Trek journey began with an email from J.J. Abrams asking if he wanted to play Scotty. According to Pegg, after reading it several times, "I didn't know what to do with it. It was kind of like yeah, yeah, of course I do...you need to ask?"

Pegg was contacted by Chris Doohan, son of James Doohan, the original Scotty. Pegg was glad for the contact, wanting Doohan to know that Pegg's portrayal of Scotty would be respectful. "James Doohan's son Chris got in touch with me which I wanted to get in touch with him anyway," explained Pegg, "because obviously James had passed away and I wanted to at least have some connection with his legacy. So Chris got in contact and we had a little chat and stuff and I told him that I wanted to make sure that I wasn't in any way sort of trying to parody what James did with the character because that would just be a completely stupid thing to do."

Stepping onto the Star Trek meant being with talented coworkers. "It was a daunting thing to come on because the whole crew was so good," said Pegg. "You know, John Cho as Sulu, and Anton Yelchin as Chekov are so solid, and J.J [Abrams], he's such a ball of energy, it feels so safe in his hands because he cares so much about it. He's absolutely dedicated. [Zoe Saldana] was amazing. She really pulled Uhura off the page into 3D beauty," said Pegg. "And Chris [Pine], who's Kirk, has just got that fantastic sort of swagger, you know, that Shatner had and it's… I think it's going to be great, I'm so excited about it."

But what of working with Leonard Nimoy? "What was weird for me about doing Star Trek," said Pegg, "was [that] it was known that Leonard Nimoy is in the film, and to be acting, to have him on set, to be near a character that I had known since I was a child...Not just the actor but the character. I rarely saw him out of his ears, you know, because he used to get into make-up first. It was phenomenal, and he was such a gentle, sort of brilliant guy."

Pegg also had praise for Zachary Quinto, who is playing the younger Spock. "Zach Quinto, who does Spock, is phenomenally like...I mean, he looks like Leonard Nimoy. On set, out of the corner of your eye, you’d think it was Leonard, it was really weird."

Pegg was tight-lipped about any plot details, except to say where Spock was concerned, "Obviously there is some conjecture out there and it's probably true."